Friends in Epinal

The second stop on our tour, after Nancy, was Epinal. Epinal is a really cute city just about an hour south of Nancy. The hour flew by, it seemed so short compared to the painful trip to Nancy. Next time we might have to just find a place just outside of Paris to regroup. Although I really did like Nancy once we got there.

But I digress, back to Epinal. Cyr's best friend lives here with his wife and new baby. You can see here Martin with his little girl, Julietta, swaddled to his chest. Can you see? I looks like he has a big growth, but it's just little Julietta snuggly tied onto her Papa so she keeps warm and feels secure!
I can't believe I didn't get more pictures of the baby...but she will show up in later posts once I get Cyr to send me a better picture of her. In the above photo we were walking (hiking in the US) up a big hill to get to an old fortress that is still standing. While walking along I saw a sign that said "Parc des animaux" and I thought, "oh, they must have little statues or something." Well. They actually had animaux!
I really thought some kid was going to get his/her fingers eaten off by these pigs. They were pretty agile even with all that fat on them!
I think these were Alpacas. I was told they were not Llamas and that's all I can think of.
And Bambi of course!
Then we walked around and saw what I am sure is where women who wear short skirts or Daisy Dukes buy their bread.

Get it? Hoochie?!
And here is where women used to wash clothes for the men-folk. We actually saw TWO of these! I don't know if it was a very clean town or if people still use them, but this one was covered so I think I would go to this one. Yes. I would go to this one and supervise while some man did my wash for me. It would have to be a very small man that I could bully into it, but I might be able to find one...

If you notice there is a little Virgin Mary at the back. I think it's there so that the woman could immediately ask for forgiveness when they were cursing the fact that they were born women or that their men were so dirty.

I also thought it was quite interesting how the city was built. Here we have a very old church and right up next to it is a shopping area. Check out how they are almost fused together. Now the church is older than the shopping area, and there is a tunnel on the left side of the photo so you can walk through (the church wall, not the photo) to get to the other side of the church or the shopping area. My only guess is that there was a building there before that was replaced. Odd though eh? I mean...where does the property line end and why did they put the windows behind the church wall?!

To end this post I'll show you are friends walking ahead of us down from the main fortress area. The large columns used to support a bridge that went across the gap there. I have to say, I thought it was a really cute little town. I also really like Martin and his wife. They live so simply. They eat healthy foods they buy almost daily, they don't own a car and walk everywhere (we did have to help them buy and bring home a fridge, but once that is over they are set), they live in a really cute apartment where they can walk into town. Makes me want to simplify.